A blog about media and technology. Sorry, no cat GIFs.

Is digital music going the way of the CD?

Much to the chagrin of anyone who ever helped me move, I love records. I might not be a dyed-in-the-wool audiophile, but I’m definitely a vinyl-phile. Nothing sounds better to me than an LP on a 30-year-old Technics turntable.

OK, many things sound better than that. But you know what never sounds as good as a stylus against a vinyl groove? A computer file.

Don’t get me wrong: I have a hefty collection of MP3s on my iTunes. But it’s the format of last resort, something I use because it’s too cumbersome to take a record player on my weekend jogs (to say nothing of the skipping — the record, not me).

But it’s not the analog snobs like me that are causing havoc in the streaming music industry. For example:

Royalty payments — the money paid to artists whose music is played on the stations — are a big factor in Pandora’s financial troubles, at least, according to The Verge. Musicians might get a pittance from streaming music services, but companies like Pandora and Spotify have to pay those royalties, whether or not ad revenues make up the difference.

This isn’t to say that Pandora, Spotify, Rdio, Rhapsody and anyone else who comes along won’t find a way to make streaming digital music profitable. But if they don’t, these services will have an even shorter shelf life than the 8-track.